Crop Insurance: Covering America

President Obama signed the Agriculture Act of 2014, or the Farm Bill, just over a year ago on February 7. It contained some very important legislation to farmers and the citizens who rely on their produce. As crop insurance agent, Elvin Anderson, put it, “Had we not had that safety net, it might be difficult for you to walk to the supermarket and pick up that loaf of bread.” That “safety net” he refers to is crop insurance.

            Before the significance of the crop insurance portion of the bill can be understood, crop insurance itself should be briefly described. Crop insurance protects farmers from the loss of revenue from the destruction of their crops due to natural disasters, disease, or wildlife. It also protects from a decline in price.  It uses the projected worth of commodities to create a fair price that farmers may purchase policies at to hold that price for their crops. If, for any approved reason, those crops should lose that value, the farmers will be compensated for the loss (Langstraat).

            This new “farm bill” provided many changes to the crop insurance program, which the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) claimed “strengthens crop insurance by providing more risk management options for farmers and ranchers and by making crop insurance more affordable for beginning farmers.” To do this, the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and the Agriculture Risk Protection (ARC) programs were implemented. The programs are meant to supplement private insurance policies to protect farmers when a price drop is experienced for multiple years. They are also meant to help the farmer meet the deductible of their crop insurance. Along with the two new programs, many more products were added to the list of covered crops. As the main factor in the “safety net,” it is important for crop insurance to cover a variety of farms and farmers (Langstraat).

            To assist in the wide range of coverage required by the diversity of agriculture in the U.S., the Whole-Farm Policy was also introduced in 2014. It is meant to more effectively cover highly diversified farms and farms selling 3-5 commodities to wholesale markets under one policy. By purchasing this policy, a farmer may now cover all of the crops on their farm, including specialty crops (United States Department of Agriculture). This allows for even more coverage to be extended to farmers.

            It is seen how important agriculture is to America through the extensive legislation that goes into protecting the industry. The population relies on farmers. In turn the population goes to great lengths to keep them in business.

Sources:

Langstraat, Laurie. “Just the Facts.” Crop Insurance Keeps America Growing. National Crop Insurance Services, n.d. Web. 1 March 2015.

United States Department of Agriculture. Risk Management Agency. USDA, April 2014. Web. 1 March 2015.

Analysis of Alan Lomax's "The Land Where the Blues Began"

When seeking to gain a greater appreciation for farming in literature, the time of sharecroppers and tenant farmers is important to look at. For them, life was the farm. They lived and died with their crops. They depended on the land to give them everything it could because that was all they got. Lucky for anyone who seeks a deeper insight into the life of one of these sharecroppers, their feelings and experiences live on through their folklore. One such example is Alan Lomax’s The Land Where the Blues Began.

            In his book, Lomax explores the importance of the blues to farmers of that time in those bleak situations. He states how the blues are the anthem for those victims of anomie and isolation, those who became more of a commodity than a human. Lomax would know. He came from a family of sharecroppers and in the 1930’s, when tenant farming was becoming a thing of the past little by little; he and his father took to recording these old blues songs as they were sung from the mouths of those who they represented. He was a student of the victims of that time and learned some of life’s greatest lessons from the people he met. Citing one sharecropper’s song, “Now listen here, Mr. President, I want you to know they’re not treatin’ us right down here…” he shares where he learned the importance of the New Deal program and how powerful a group can be in getting things done in Washington, when they have a united voice.

            What Lomax did was no small task. It wasn’t of small significance either. Carrying around their 500-pound recorder, he and his father captured these farmers’ songs in their fields as they worked. With these recordings came the “complex polyphony of the blacks, which notation could not represent.” He also captured a neglected culture and gave us an incredible look into their perspective.

            Perhaps the most amazing thing we gain from all of his recordings is that we can hear an exact copy of what those people were singing. Many of these songs have evolved overtime, and the same song could be incredibly different from one field to the next. Just as the sharecropper’s verse previously cited, which spoke to the President of the U.S., their songs were a representation of the struggles and feelings of the time they were in. To try to hear these songs now from descendants would be impossible. Lomax made it a possibility to hear it “straight out of the horse’s mouth,” and the value of that cannot be underestimated.

            There is much we can learn from the past. Just as an almanac provides us with imperative information learned by those who came before us, the folklore of these times also bring a wealth of knowledge. We need to understand the damage we can do to others through unfair practices if we are to be successful. Any long-lasting business model must be fair to all parties and it is the same with farming. The tenant-farming model proved this with its collapse.

Sources:

Lomax, Alan. The Land Where the Blues Began. New York: Delta, 1993. Print.

Photograph: John Vachon, Office of War Information. Library of Congress Photographs and Prints, LC-USF34- 014000-Ef

From Hoof, to Rail, to Table

            “Some must work in fields if only for the sake of tropes and expression, to serve a parable maker one day” (qtd. In Kinkead, Funda, McNeill 68). I learned from a young age the work that goes into serving someone a steak. I don’t mean the waiter who served it to them, or even the chef who grilled it. I’m talking about all that goes into preparing that steak while it’s still “on the hoof.” I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to get those small calves, born at about 80 pounds, to the 1300 pound “fat” ready for slaughter. Much like Henry David Thoreau’s experience at Walden Pond, I learned a lot about the task I was engaged in but I learned much more about the world around me.

            At three in the morning it’s time to get up and do the third check of the night on the pregnant cows that are looking ready to calve. My siblings and I were in charge of checking the cows every three hours from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. to make sure none were experiencing any complications with the birth. First calf heifers were trouble because of their smaller size and often the calf had to be pulled by putting small chains around its front feet and my brother and I pulling on the attached handles. One year a calf’s hoof got stuck and was twisted when we pulled it. This caused it to walk with a bad limp for the rest of its life. My parents didn’t want to take a cut on the price at sale time, so the calf became ours to raise.

            Its birth was only the beginning of the work. We used a tube to feed it colostrum because it was unable to suck. Then we had to supplement electrolytes into its diet. We kept it in a pen with plenty of straw (the calving season is late February to April) to keep it warm. Finally after a week it was strong enough to get up and suck from its mother. Now we just had to keep the cow fed well enough, which was much less demanding. Before I knew it, the calf was out with the others.

            After we were done calving, we sent the herd out on pasture from April to November. Unfortunately, there was no way our little “project” would grow very well on pasture, due to it bum leg. We put it in the pen and fed it hay twice a day. At 800 pounds we started giving it grain along with its hay to fatten in up at a faster rate for slaughter. It was ready after almost a year. We hauled it to the slaughterhouse, where it was put “on the rail.” They killed it, removed its head, hide, hooves, and guts, and it is put in a cold room to be aged for about a month. The carcass is then butchered into different cuts and packaged (Beranek, Wood). At last the steak is delivered for the customer to prepare and serve. We had steak in our freezer for more than a year from that once small calf.

            This experience taught me all that goes into the products we consume on a daily basis. However, unlike Thoreau, I appreciate all who have worked to advance agriculture (Kinkead, Funda, McNeill 68). With farmers growing the food I eat and the materials used to make my clothes, I am able to pursue my goals. Without farmers, we would all be confined to small plots to scratch a living off the land and progress would be compromised. Thank goodness for those who work to get our food “from hoof, to rail, to table.”

Sources:

Beranek, Magda, and Jason Wood. Agricultural Marketing Guide. Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, 9 Oct. 2008. Web. 28 Jan. 2015.

Kinkead, Joyce, Evelyn Funda, and Lynne S. McNeill. Farm: A Multimodal Reader. Southlake: Fountainhead Press, 2014. Print.

Staying on the Farm

A look into my family’s past shows a long history heavily involved in agriculture.  To name a few of the most recent generations, my father and mother’s grandparents were ranchers on both sides of their family. My mother’s parents followed suit by ranching in northern Idaho and my grandpa on my father’s side was a soil consultant to farmers in Washington. My own dad came here, to Utah State University and later Washington State University to become a veterinarian. He followed up with earning a PhD in animal nutrition at Texas A&M. He now works as a feed yard consultant and a director of research (testing drugs for large animals for various companies).  Due to his fond memories of working with my great grandfather on his ranch in Bear Lake, Idaho, my dad bought a ranch about ten years ago and runs more than 400 beef cows. This has given me the same opportunity to have those memories of the joys of agriculture and this is the reason for my interest in the industry.

            This brief summary of my family’s role in agriculture is one that many would have in earlier days. Unfortunately, most past generations have had to leave the farm and seek work else ware.  This is largely a result of the industry rapidly evolving to meet the needs of a growing world population and the many challenges it has faced in America, such as climate change. To better meet these needs, biotechnology became increasingly available throughout the 1980’s to improve the practice and produce more, and arguably better, crop and livestock yields. The ability to adapt to, and apply this biotechnology became a deciding factor in the farmer or rancher’s success and whether or not they could "stay on the farm.”

            Fortunately, I come from a family, which was able to adapt to, and successfully apply these new technologies to their beloved field. I remember flying in my grandfather’s little Cessna airplane as he took pictures of his neighbors’ farms. He told me how he would then use those pictures to find areas of the farm that needed further testing on the soil. The pictures told him this by the color and size of the crops. After taking sample cores from those spots, he returned to his lab to test the soil for nutrients, water levels, and the overall production health of the ground. He could then provide the farmers with the incredibly accurate needs of their produce, such as more or less water, fertilizer, or topsoil. The farmers of the area looked to him for instruction on how they could better utilize the biotechnologies of the day. My dad continues to develop other biotechnologies today for the use in livestock. He does this through his research and then helps his clients keep informed and apply them through consultations. Both have succeeded in maintaining the long legacy in our family.

            I love agriculture. It is deep I my roots. Hopefully I can be equally successful in "staying on the farm.”

Sources:

Spielmaker, Debra. Growing a Nation: The Story of American Agriculture. United States Department of Agriculture, 2014. Web. 18 Jan. 2015.